new scientist

Just wondering if anyone had noticed the mention of "directional cables" in the "humour" section at the back of the current issue of New Scientist.

It's online as well:

http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id=mg19325882.500

 

Funny, this came up briefly in discussion with Rob yesterday. We both quite quickly exclaimed 'but its AC!'

I like the comment about high-rise buildings on that site though

 

directional cables: unless they have a floating ground at one end or similar, it's bollocks.

cable designs can be directional, but wire isn't and i'm sure Russ Andrews and no one else can find verifiable peer group reviewed trials to prove otherwise. Otherwise they would. fi the cable design is symmetrical then thats it. maybe you could show a bradied wire with long paralel run out at one end to be different, somehow if you had the test gear,but what would you look for.

There's nothing to show a notionally 'improved' electron flow in any wire in any direction, if there was the big brands would be all over it.

 

I'm sure the new scientist would have a field day if they delved a bit further into the world of hifi superstition. I think i might send them some of that peter belt magic tinfoil stuff.

 

Lol. Yes please!

 

As far as I am aware mankind still can't explain electricity fully and certainly can't comprehend gravity or magnetism or light or dark in fact for that matter (there's another one) so perhaps keeping an open mind and trusting our senses is the way forward in all fields. IF a wire was uniform then maybe directionality would be a difficult occurance to explain but I don't think they are, exactly, uniform.

 

Roughly ten years ago I recall reading an article that reported on an experiment carried out by 'audiophiles' that found that live music produces frequencies that are above the human hearing range and so cannot be conciously listened to but the brain recieves these frequencies through the skull and reacts to them in differing ways. Thay had apparently isolated one of these frequencies that had a repeatable effect of making someone happy. They concluded, in the article, that Hi-Fi was incappable of reproducing these super audible sounds and that this was partly the reason why live music is such n enjoyable experience compared to recorded music. I have wondered at times if the spine tingling sensation I occasionally experience when listening to a Hi-Fi is a 'recall' effect in other words the Hi-Fi is recreating a fragment of a sound that I have heard in reality and my brain is filling in the rest, resulting in a phychosymatic reproduction of the live music experience in my brain. Heavy isn't it lol.

 

Cables MUST be directional because the manufacturers put little arrows on them to tell us which way to fit them!! The moon is also made of green cheese, isn't it?

 

Ignoring those green arrows is very risky - put a directional cable in the wrong way round, and the electricity will pile up inside it...

 

...er, they can actually. Perhaps you lack a scientific education.

"The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene is a good read if you want to explore.

 

It's because of my scientific education that I realise we don't understand.

 

I understand quite well that my 'speaker cones move backwards and forwards respective of an at rest point. What strange unexplained force is making this happen? What unfathomable mysteries is this? Could it be an alternating electrical current? I think the clue might be in the world alternating.

Keep an open mind by all means, but not so open there's a draft blowing through it.

 

If we are discussing the possablilty that a cable sounds differrent when connected one way as opposed to the other then what we are actually discussing is not electro mechanical nor is it elecronic or electrical. It is the fundamental nature of elecricity at an atomic and sub atomic level in that specific conductor in its actual environment. So please feel free to use sarcasm to help explain to me why this can not occur.

 

Any fisherman out there? IS your line directional, do you find you get a better bite due to forces exerted across molecular boundaries working better in one direction than another?


Drops sarcasm for a minute...

i don't doubt at all that there is good theoretical physics that can hint at why electorns might favour going in one direction rather than the other between grain boundaries. But i sure as hell doubt that it has an effect that can be perceived by something as inherantly inaccurate as the human ear listening to anything quite as muddied as a hifi system.

it's just marketing bollocks.

 

“the fundamental nature of elecricity at an atomic and sub atomic level†?

Ohh, that sounds good! Sounds just like the sort of rubbish that appears on cable vendor websites. Shame you couldn't work in “quantum†and “energy†aswell.

“the fundamental nature of electricity at a quantum atomic and sub atomic energy levelâ€Â

There. That's better.

Now, back in the real world, AC is still a back and forth kinda stuff. Its direction (or polarity) is cyclical.

 

Maybe there is in-depth physics which shows that the direction of a cables crystal structure affects the signal, but as we know music is AC, it would introduce distortion no matter which way you placed the cable. At 20KHz, the current flows back and forth along that cable 20,000 times a second.

Also there are differences in the non-linear distortion of drivers for each way they move (+/-) which is likely to be factors greater than that displayed by any cable, if it even exists.

This thread should be sent to New Scientist.

 

Excellent point!

 

http://www.eskimo.com/~ultra/ultracad/mentor/what_is_current.pdf

 

These discussions always seem to miss the point somewhat. If the claim is that one direction sounds better than the other, then back up the claim with results from a properly conducted listening test. Theories about how or why it could sound different aren't really relevant. No scientist will claim we understand everything. But we can test whether or not something can be perceived by humans.

 

The pro cable lobby claim you cant - largely because all such tests have failed to show any difference so they concoct a story to account for why double blind tests (or any other methodology) dont work for hifi cables but they do work for everything else. Which puts it on a par with poltergeists or homeopathy IMHO.